Chapter 75: Need To Hide The Trump Card
The war room doors hissed open, breaking through the low hum of ongoing strategy discussions.
Heads turned.
And there he was, Harry.
Disheveled. Grease stains on his lab coat. Dark circles under his eyes. Hair sticking out like static had kissed him repeatedly. But alive. And grinning like a man who'd outrun death with a clipboard in hand.
Tyler, freshly back from his own hell, blinked from across the room.
Diego actually laughed out loud.
Li let out a sharp whistle.
"Look what the lab dragged in," she said dryly.
Slacovich, standing at the head of the tactical map, gave Harry a nod that, by his standards, might as well have been a full parade welcome.
Sofie smiled quietly from her seat, relief softening her gaze.
Harry didn't waste time on greetings.
He stormed straight to the table, slamming down a reinforced vial filled with a faintly glowing amber liquid.
"Call off the search parties," he said breathlessly. "I've been underground working on this since we pulled those silver fragments out of your bodies from the battle back at the estate."
He pulled off his glasses, wiping them on his sleeve.
"Long story short?" He pointed at the vial.
"I figured it out."
Li raised an eyebrow. "Figured what out?"
Harry gestured for the central holopad to project the molecular scans he'd brought with him. The screen lit up with a simulated bloodstream, showing Reaper DNA laced with microscopic silver nodules, dormant and hidden beneath a biofilm of human genetic residue.
"Volton didn't just shove silver into their bodies. He used dormant molecular coating, essentially human DNA, to mask it inside the Reapers' vampire cells. Think of it like… wrapping poison in sugar. The silver stays cloaked, non-lethal, until triggered."
He zoomed in.
Showed the moment of activation:
A simulated signal.
The biofilm dissolved.
The silver flooded the bloodstream like venom.
"They get stronger for a burst window. Then they start dying from the inside out."
Tyler stiffened at the image, recognizing the effect all too well from his recent battle.
Diego cursed under his breath. "So… every Reaper we've fought… has been a walking time bomb?"
Harry nodded grimly. "Exactly. Weaponized suicide soldiers. Built for chaos. But—"
He held up the vial.
"This? This changes everything."
The simulation shifted.
Harry's serum entered the bloodstream model. Within seconds, the silver particles destabilized, then forcefully purged from the simulated cells like they'd been expelled by a chemical exorcism.
"The serum isolates the human genetic masking agent… forces the body to reject the silver before it activates."
Li blinked. "So… you're saying if any of us gets tagged by a Reaper's poisoned strike…"
Harry grinned wide. "Drink this. Purge it. Regenerate instantly."
Slacovich crossed his arms, stepping closer. "And them? The Reapers? What happens if we force this into them?"
Harry's smile turned sharp.
"They lose their human biofilm. Silver activates all at once. Instant systemic rejection. Their bodies won't survive it."
A long silence fell over the room.
Then Slacovich turned toward the map of current Reaper deployments.
"Start mass-producing it," he ordered. "I want the first batches on the frontlines within 24 hours. Make sure every Knight, Hunter, and operative knows how to use it."
Harry gave a quick salute. "Already on it. Labs are working overtime."
Sofie stood then, voice steady but warm. "Harry… good work. You may have just given us the edge we've been missing."
Harry rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly sheepish. "Hey… anything for the home team."
Slacovich stepped back toward the command chair at the head of the room, his rightful place as strategist, general, and now, undisputed war master of the Demonfire Clan's coming moves.
His gaze swept across the room, his voice gaining that dangerous, clipped tone they all knew meant business.
"We've been playing catch-up for too long," he said. "Not anymore. This serum shifts the battlefield. No more defensive lines. No more containment strategies."
He pointed to the updated enemy map.
"We push. Hard. Everywhere."
The others straightened, feeling the shift in air.
Tyler finally looked up from where he'd been silent at the corner, eyes sharpening again.
The Queen stood beside her general without hesitation.
Slacovich's voice lowered, steel behind every word.
"From this point on… we take the fight to Volton."
---
The war room buzzed louder now.
Diego and Tyler argued playfully over how fast the serum could be distributed. Li was already texting frontline captains with deployment orders. Harry was sketching field injector designs on the back of an old requisition form.
Everyone had ideas.
Everyone had battle plans.
Even Sofie was laughing softly at the sudden burst of hope flooding the room.
For the first time in weeks…
There was real momentum.
But in the far corner, half-forgotten on her little chair near the wall, Ania sat swinging her legs, staring thoughtfully at the flickering holomap.
She clutched Nimpha, whose soul fragments now reside in the worn, stuffed rabbit she never went anywhere without, tight against her chest. Her little brow furrowed, lips pursed in quiet concentration.
Slacovich was mid-sentence, rallying them like old times.
"…by the time the Reapers figure out what hit them, half their strike squads will be bleeding silver out of every pore. I want squads A through G to run point with the first wave. Tyler, Li, you'll lead the spearhead. Diego, you'll run backline for serum support. Harry, push R&D for field dispersal options. A mist formulation if possible, for ambush zones."
Cheers.
Nods.
Excitement brewing.
Ania blinked slowly, then raised her tiny hand.
Nobody noticed.
She waved it higher. "Um… excuse me…"
Still nothing.
Finally, she hopped off the chair, stomped over to the main console, and smacked the base of it with her palm like she'd seen Slacovich do when frustrated.
The room fell quiet.
All eyes turned.
Ania stood there with both hands on her hips, bunny tucked under one arm, giving every adult present a full scolding glare worthy of any commander.
"…You're all really bad at secret things," she announced matter-of-factly.
Li coughed, stifling a laugh. "Come again, shortcake?"
Ania pointed at the central projection, currently showing supply routes, injection points, and field targets.
Then she pointed at Harry's live data uploads, floating across an unsecured network feed.
"You're showing everything," she said. "Volton has ears. Eyes. Ghosty bugs in the wires."
Tyler froze.
Harry blinked.
Even Slacovich paused, his calculating mind catching up in an instant.
Sofie leaned forward, narrowing her gaze. "Ania… what do you mean?"
Ania adjusted her bunny like a commander adjusting a sidearm.
"Nimpha says… if you want to win… don't tell the bad guy what game you're playing until after you already won it."
The room went dead silent.
Harry's face drained of color. He scrambled for the data panel. "Holy crap, she's right! Half this stuff's bouncing through unsecured secondary relays. If Volton's got any taps on our info grid—"
Li swore, already pulling down feeds.
Slacovich barked, "Shut down all external data links. Now. Keep production off-grid. No digital footprints, no shipment logs, nothing trackable. This doesn't leave fortress walls."
Tyler, finally speaking up, added darkly, "From now on… this serum? It doesn't exist on paper. Only in blood."
Diego was already disabling every outgoing signal. "If Volton even sniffs this… he'll adapt his Reapers before we hit the field."
Sofie walked over to Ania, crouched down, and cupped her face gently.
"…You just saved us from making a very stupid mistake," she whispered with a small smile.
Ania grinned back like it was nothing. "That's what Nimpha said too."
Everyone moved fast after that.
Within minutes, all files about the serum were scrubbed from external systems. Hard copies only. No transmissions. Physical hand-delivery only.
The first batches would be transported under blackout protocols, buried inside non-descript containers, moved at random intervals under Slacovich's direct command.
Not a single byte of information would leak.
No one outside the Fortress would know.
Not even their allies.
Not until it was too late.
The serum became their secret weapon.
Invisible to Volton's radar.
A ghost strategy.
A hidden edge.
And when the next battlefield burned—
The Reapers wouldn't know what hit them.